Award-winning design for a new generation

“From the cliff side, the building hovers dramatically over the edge of the rock face with a series of public viewing platforms, which sit on the different rock shelf levels,” Annabel said. “However, approaching from the Haviland Park side as visitors do, we wanted to downplay the building and emphasise the landscape.

“We achieved this by sinking the building down onto a rock shelf and allowing the land form to gently rise up, to create a new green horizon line and maintain the vista through Haviland Park.”

A new master plan for the Haviland Park site was required after major excavation to build Warragamba Dam’s new auxiliary spillway in the early 2000s. The auxiliary spillway diverts floodwaters around the dam in a rare and extreme flood so as to protect the dam and ensure it remains safe.

Excavation for the new spillway created a sheer cliff face some 25m high on which the Visitor Centre now sits overlooking the dam wall and Lake Burragorang.

lahznimmo architects teamed up with landscape architects SpackmanMossop Michaels in a joint venture LNSM for the Warragamba Dam Master Plan, Recreation Areas as well as the Visitor and Operations Centre.

“Haviland Park is listed on the State Heritage Register as an item of high-level state heritage significance in acknowledgement of its archeological remnants, the design and formalism of its landscape and plantings, and its significance to the NSW community as a place of recreation,” Annabel said.

“While being careful to preserve the site’s heritage, we were able to create new facilities that have helped introduce Haviland Park to a new generation of visitors.

“For example, we replaced the original picnic shelters designed for small nuclear families with more generous shelters, which cater for extended families and large group gatherings.”

WaterNSW joined with more than 60 events from 15-24 September 2023 as part of the Powerhouse Museum’s celebration of the critical research, industries, infrastructure and technologies that underpin design practice in Sydney.

The range of Sydney Design Week events was expanded this year to explore the complex and interconnected social and natural ecologies in which contemporary design operates.

WaterNSW was delighted Warragamba Dam was included as one of the standout new sites to explore the social, environmental and ethical issues facing designers, researchers and architects as part of the 27^th Sydney Design Week from 15-24 September 2023.

Traditional owner Kazan Brown welcomed visitors on to Gundungurra Country and shared the creation story of how the deep gorges of the Burragorang Valley were gouged in a cross-country battle between two Dreamtime ancestors Mirrigan, a quoll like hunter and fisherman, and the rainbow eel Gurungatch.

It was Kazan’s daughter Taylor who cut the ribbon to officially open the new Visitor Centre building (with then Water Minister Phil Costa) back in November 2009.